


Between the Bars

by thursdayschild



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drinking, M/M, One Shot, not much by way of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdayschild/pseuds/thursdayschild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wasn’t an alcoholic. He didn’t need it; it just made things a little easier sometimes.</p><p>Dorian finds out about John's drinking problem, but even the best programming can't help him fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Bars

**Author's Note:**

> The titles comes from the Elliott Smith song of the same name, which I listened to far too many times in a row.

John drank.

He wasn’t an alcoholic. Alcoholism was a sign of weakness and addiction was something that happened to other people. Anyway, he didn’t _need_ it; it just made things a little easier sometimes.

Before the ambush, John had been a dreamer. It hadn’t shown much through his brusque words and tough-guy manner, but at night, when his dark dreams had been soothed in someone’s arms, he’d imagined the future. It hadn’t been the sort of future he’d imagine now, not that he dared to look forward too far anymore. It had been a future with Anna, a future that he didn’t spend alone. Sometimes they had a dog in his dreams; if he was feeling especially hopeful there’d be a non-descript yet joyful child getting underfoot in the house that they would own once John was able to earn a transfer to the suburbs. He hadn’t been a bold dreamer so it was never a nice house or a smart dog or an exceptional child. But it was a life, a life worth fighting for.

John didn’t have that dream anymore.

He tried not to think about the future he might have had with Anna – or at least with the person he had thought Anna was. It hurt and too many things hurt already for him to think about his dream these days. So he drank.

He didn’t drink at home; he knew it would remind him too much of his father. So he went out – it wasn’t like he had someone else to be spending his money on. He told himself that it was a way to meet people, but he never so much as bought a pretty woman a drink. He responded to friendly questions with aggressive grunts and started more fights than conversations. He’d been banned for seven bars in the past six months.

He told himself that he didn’t have a problem. He _knew_ that he didn’t have a problem. Then he got called into work when it was supposed to be his day off.

"John?”

Dorian was at his side at once and John knew there was no point denying it as color danced up and down the side of the DRN’s face.

"Captain Maldonado,” Dorian said at once, turning to her.

She glanced his way, face just open enough to indicate that she would accept his interruption.

"Detective Kennex isn’t fit for duty.”

"Is he ever?” she muttered to herself before looking to John. “Kennex?”

"Captain?” he said, trying not to squint too much in the bright light of her office.

"Is he right?”

"I’m fine,” he said, words coming out just a little too close together.

"Man, your BAC is—.”

"I’m fine,” he repeated loudly, cutting off Dorian.

"You’re drunk,” Maldonado said flatly, no question to her voice.

John glared at Dorian.

"I was drinking last night,” he admitted grudging.

"And I assume you’ve slept since then?”

Maldonado’s eyes narrowed at John’s silence.

"Go home, Kennex.”

John shot Dorian a dark look before turning and stalking off. It would have been more dramatic if he hadn’t stumbled.

* * *

That night, someone caught John’s elbow when he staggered out of one of his favorite haunts. Alex, the bartender, had told him he’d had quite enough so he was off to find a place that would sell to him. He turned unfocused eyes to see what this asshole wanted. The words were half-formed in his mouth before he got a good look at the concerned face.

"What are you— Dorian?”

"You okay, man?”

John fixed Dorian with a look, but the bot seemed wholly unimpressed.

"I’ll take you home.”

Dorian’s face started flickering and John guessed he was calling a cab.

"Aren’t you supposed to be all snug up with the MXs?” he slurred.

"You never got home. Have you been drinking all day?”

"No,” John muttered, wondering vaguely about the fact that Dorian knew where he did and didn’t go.

"You should go home. It’s late. Come on.” Dorian tugged patiently at his sleeve.

"Go back to your pod.”

"You need to rest. We’re on duty tomorrow.”

John started walking away from the nicer places and towards the places where they didn’t care what you did as long as you weren’t breaking things.

"Alright. Well, I’ll come with you then.”

John tried to speed up and get away from Dorian, but it was hard. He was tired, just tired.

Dorian walked beside him, occasionally steadying him when his foot caught on the uneven pavement still slick from the earlier rain. He sat beside him at the next bar, gaining a slightly questioning look from the bartender. She knew John by sight and he was always alone.

"At least tell me what’s wrong,” Dorian said after John set down his second glass with a little more force than he’d intended.

John dragged his gaze back from the middle distance and onto Dorian’s face, so much more real than the MXs’ and just shy of perfect, but still somehow not quite right.

"It’s a human thing.”

Dorian chewed his lip for a moment.

"I can still listen.”

John rolled his eyes.

"Is there a point in telling you something you won’t understand?”

"Could be good for you.”

John glared into his empty glass.

"And I might understand better than you think.”

"Right. You know everything about me. You read my file.” John gave him a sneering smile.

"I do have feelings, you know,” Dorian snapped.

John frowned at him slightly. While Dorian was always more than eager to demonstrate his supposed emotional capacity, he’d rarely seen the bot lash out like that and certainly not at him. It dawned on him that he might have offended Dorian, but then again it wasn’t just his synthetic nature that would keep his partner from understanding. No one seemed to understand how he felt about the ambush, how he felt about Anna. He’d lost so much more than his leg in that fight. He’d been someone else back then and, somewhere hidden in his heart, he mourned for that person. Dorian knew nothing of that man, knew nothing of loss, nothing of death or betrayal.

Dorian was looking at him something like expectance in his face.

"What are you doin’ here?” John asked at length.

"I was worried about you.”

"Sure.”

"I was.”

"And Maldonado had nothing to do with it.”

"Rudy let me out. Maldonado went home hours ago.”

"I’m sure you were just lying awake thinking about me.”

"Essentially.”

John thought he felt himself flush for a moment, but it was probably just the crowded bar and the drinks and maybe he didn’t really feel well.

Dorian caught up with John in the street. The rain had come back as a gentle mist and John was standing in the gutter with his head tipped back. Tiny drops of water clung to his skin and lashes and he’d forced his breath to be slow and deep. People pushed their way around him, not paying much mind to another drunk the street.

"John.”

"Can you feel it?”

"The rain?”

"The way it washes things away, makes ‘em clean.”

Dorian frowned. He could easily calculate the number of toxins in the rain and, even without running diagnostics on it, he knew it was anything but clean.

"Not really,” he admitted, thrown by John’s sudden change in behavior.

"You’re hopeless.”

"The water’s dirty, John.”

"That’s not the point.”

John lowered his face and turned to look at Dorian. His eyebrows were pulled slightly together in a look of polite puzzlement mixed with that undertone of concern he’d had all night. John couldn’t help thinking that if Dorian had been with him back then, Martin might still be alive. The MX had been cold and calculating, driven by nothing more than the statistics it saw as facts. Dorian was different. Dorian would have helped him try to save Martin’s life. Dorian would have died for them.

"I didn’t used to be like this.”

"Like what?”

John gestured vaguely at himself.

"I had a plan, well, not really a plan, but a hope, I guess, for the future.”

"A dream,” said Dorian quietly.

"Yeah. A dream.”

"About Anna?”

"Something like that.”

John looked back out at the road, at the sidewalk across the way, at the life flowing around them. So many people going places with such intent while he stood there going nowhere.

"Do you have that?”

"A dream?”

"An idea about the future,” he said, rolling his eyes again. Of course he’d get landed with the starry-eyed synthetic.

Dorian just smiled and shook his head slightly.

"Go home, John.”

"You don’t even know why I’m doing this.”

"It won’t make you forget. If you really wanted to forget, you could. But not like this.”

"I can’t forget. I’ll figure out the case one day.”

"You can’t just numb yourself forever. You have to face it.”

"Don’t fucking lecture me about how to be a human, alright?”

"Alright,” said Dorian, shrugging easily. “But I can lecture you on how you’re pumping your body full of toxins.”

"You know what happened to the last bot who sassed me?”

"Would that be the one you shot in the face or the one you pushed out of your car?”

John stared at Dorian. He was just so damn human. And good at it. That was the most uncanny thing about him. He was actually good at being a human. It wasn’t natural. And yet...

"John?”

"Hm?”

"Thought I was losing you there, man. Come on, let’s get you home.”

"Just thinking.”

"What about?”

"You’re a damn strange thing, Dorian.”

"I’m not a thing.”

John looked at him, focusing intensely in a moment of clarity.

"No, I suppose you’re not.”

The moment was slipping past and John stumbled as the world tilted away. Colors and sounds blurred around him and something caught him, hands gripping his waist. He tried to let the gentle pressure steady his world, but everything just kept moving, spinning in dizzying circles and he looked up, trying to find the stable center of that dance. What he found was Dorian’s face.

The kiss only lasted a few moments and then John was vomiting into the gutter.

Dorian held him steady, lights moving up and down his check as he called for a car to take John home.

"Please don’t do this tomorrow,” he said when John allowed himself to pulled upright again.

"Maybe not tomorrow,” he agreed.

Dorian suppressed a sigh. He didn’t know how to pull John from this world without getting him into even more trouble at work. He couldn’t get John fired like that. It would only hurt him – not to mention that he might never see the man again. That was the downside to being so close to human: some days you just couldn’t win.

John threw up again before the car pulled up. Dorian slid in quietly beside him and John didn’t protest nor did he say anything when Dorian followed him into his apartment.

"You won’t be charged,” was all he had when Dorian handed him a glass of water.

"I’ll be fine. Drink this.”

Dorian watched John stumble into his bedroom and then politely turned away from the open door. John fell asleep quickly and Dorian knew he should leave. He refilled John’s water glass and silently left it on the man’s bedside table, not letting his eyes linger on John’s naked torso for too long. He went back into the main room, absently scanning the space for anything strange.

He thought about pouring out all the bottles.

He didn’t. There was no point.

* * *

When John awoke to a pounding headache, there was a glass of water, now room temperature, on his bedside table that he didn’t remember leaving there. To be fair, he didn’t remember much from the previous night. Annoyance that might have been anger. That haunting sadness that no number of drinks could chase away. Throwing up – again. A kiss. And a lingering promise. Not tonight. He wouldn’t go out tonight. He could wait till tomorrow. 


End file.
